


The Cost of Doing Business

by ropememory



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inception_kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ropememory/pseuds/ropememory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=46226864#t46226864">this prompt</a> on inception_kink</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Cost of Doing Business

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=46226864#t46226864) on inception_kink

There are times when Robert feels like he’s misinterpreting things. Times when he looks at Saito and sees snow and blood and it makes no sense, because they’ve never been _anywhere_ together where it was snowing. Or he’ll be in a hotel bar and a thought about a Mr. Charles will pop into his head. And there’s more, much more than there should be, and it still never makes sense. Until the day that it does.

\--

“What’d you take?” Robert asks one evening after dinner. The look Saito gives him only frustrates Robert more. “From my head,” Robert continues. There’s a flicker of recognition in Saito’s eyes, then.

“I did not take anything,” Saito says.

“Then what were you doing.” Robert tries not to let his anger show, because then the conversation will be shot down before it’s even started ( _”There’s no use talking when you’re like this, Robert,”_ Saito’s voice says in his head, the same way it sounds every time Robert hadn’t been able to stay calm during an argument), and Robert wants Saito to explain, to confess.

“Giving.” And then he’s getting up to leave and that’s _infuriating._

“What did you _give?_ ” Robert asks, and it sounds contemptuous to his ears and that won’t help, but he can’t stop himself from yelling much longer.

“Just an idea,” Saito replies, and then he walked out the door.

Robert throws whatever is within reach at the door when it shuts. “Fucker!”

\--

“It was not an idea about _us,_ ” Saito says in the morning, when he’s come back. And Robert _knows_ that. He knows what the idea _was,_ but the whole point is for Saito to have to _say it._

“Then what was it about?” Robert asks.

“Something that had to be done,” Saito replies.

“You know,” Robert starts, but Saito holds a hand up to stop him.

“I do not expect you to understand.”

“You make it very hard to forgive,” Robert says, and then he’s the one walking out the door.

\--

“I want to _want_ to forgive you,” Robert says over the phone. Because if this is going to be the end of something else in his life, well, he’s rather sick of ending them in person at this point.

“But that’s not the same as actually forgiving,” Saito responds.

Robert sighs. “If you’d just be _honest_ about it, maybe I could.”

The phone’s silent for long enough that Robert thinks about checking the connection, but then Saito finally speaks. “I was not expecting anything to happen between you and I, after. It was to simply be the cost of doing business.”

“Was it worth it?” Robert asks, because the answer seems important, even if he’s not sure which one he’d rather hear.

“It was a worthwhile business decision,” Saito replies.

That’s not an answer, at least not a whole one, but Robert figures it’s the only one he’ll get. “I’ll call you,” he says, and then hangs up the phone.

\--

It’s not that he’s _unhappy,_ now, it’s just that, if Saito was willing to go into his mind once, what’s stopping him from doing it again? How sure could Robert be that all of his thoughts, at least where Saito was concerned, were actually his own?

\--

Robert sends a postcard, because he’s not going to hunt down Saito to have the conversation in person and a part of him wants written proof, something to point to, later.

The postcard asks “Would you do it again?”

\--

Saito responds with an email: _Not to you._ Robert figures he’ll have to be okay with that, at least for now.


End file.
